The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved today a plan by the New York Historical Society at 170 Central Park West to alter its landmark facade.

According to the society, the plans are to provide improved disable access, better emergency egress, improved interior circulation and new elevators and mechanical equipment.

The plan, however, was strongly opposed by some civic organizations, such as Landmark West!, and the local community board on the grounds that the plans really were to prepare the way for the institution to erect a 280-foot-high condominium apartment tower on part of its property. The society maintained that the issues were separate and distinct.

The commission recently asked the society to review and revise its plans and the plan approved today no longer had long ramps for disabled access parallel to the building's Central Park West frontage and also did not have large kiosks flanking the top of the entrance. The kiosks are now placed at street-level on either side of the front stairs.

The society has been "responsive" and the revised plans are "wholly appropriate," declared Robert Tierney, the commission's chairman prior the commission's unanimous vote.

Paul Spencer Byard of the architectural firm of Platt, Byard, Dovell & White, which has designed the facade changes, told CityRealty.com today after the commission's vote, that the society was happy that the revised design now has deeper and steeper and broader front stairs that rise up to the building's first floor.

Community Board 7 voted 40 to 2 March 6 to recommend that the commission deny the application. While the co-chairs of the board's committee, Lenore Norman and Klari Neuwelt, maintained that the vote was only about the society's proposed facade changes that they found inappropriate such as the "use of bronze and glass, rather than masonry, for the walls and railings of the new ramps on each of the affected facades," the resolution adopted by the board made reference to plans by the society for "a mixed-use museum/residential building on its site fronting 76th Street."

A New York Times article by Glenn Collins November 1, 2006 reported that the society had invited 8 developers to make proposals for the erection of a mixed-use building that could be 23 stories and 280 feet high on a vacant lot it owns at 7-13 West 76th Street behind its building that fills the Central Park West blockfront between 76th and 77th Streets.

The new tower would provide about 75,000 square feet of space for the society beneath 18 floors of condominium apartments and part of the tower would be cantilevered over the society's existing building, whose original center section was designed in neo-classical style in 1904 by York & Sawyer and expanded with wings at the north and south in 1937 by Walker & Gillette.

The society has a major collection of Hudson River School paintings, including many major works by Thomas Cole, original watercolors by Aububon. It recently has held important exhibitions on slavery in New York State.